The European Union has warned left-separatist Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon she must “legally commit” to adopting the euro currency if she wants Scotland to rejoin the EU after breaking with the United Kingdom.
Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland’s devolved government — roughly equivalent to a State government in the U.S. — is currently seeking to re-run the 2014 referendum on Scotland leaving the United Kingdom, despite having said that vote would be “once in a lifetime”.
Despite the fact the notional goal of her Scottish National Party (SNP) is national independence, it has pledged to take Scotland back into the EU if they do manage to break it off from the United Kingdom — which would of course involve surrendering sovereignty to the bloc with respect to customs, a host of regulations, the management of national fisheries, and so on.
Indeed, in addition to having even less influence in the EU than the United Kingdom did, being a much smaller country, an “independent” Scotland would also probably have significantly fewer opt-outs from elements of the European project that Britain as a new member-state — not least on the matter of its currency.
In a recent economic paper on what a separate Scotland would do about a national currency — currently shared with the rest of the United Kingdom — Sturgeon claimed it would initially continue to use the British pound before switching to its own Scottish pound, with the euro ruled out as not being “the right option for Scotland”.
However, multiple EU sources have now told The Times that a permanent opt-out from the so-called single currency is simply not an option for Scotland, with one warning in unambiguous terms: “No euro, no membership.”
An economic affairs spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU’s unelected executive-cum-legislature, meanwhile told the Herald on Sunday: “All EU member states, except Denmark which has an opt-out clause, are legally committed to join the euro area once they fulfil the necessary conditions” — although she did add that is is “up to individual countries to calibrate their path towards the euro and no timetable is prescribed.”
“The EU is not a utopian wonderland to which Scotland can magically escape, nor is it the antithesis of the UK. The EU is a political union with divisions and challenges, internal and external. An independent Scotland, if it joined the bloc, would be one piece in the larger European puzzle,” said European Merchants think tank managing director Anthony Salamone in comments to The Times.
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